The Most Popular Poker Shows on TV, Based on Downloads

The most popular poker shows of the last few months, based on average downloads per episode at the Poker Bay, are:

1. High Stakes Poker 12,510
2. Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational 5,060
3. Poker After Dark 4,990
4. European Poker Tour 3,567
5. Cash Poker 2,698
6. World Poker Tour 2,679
7. William Hill Poker Grand Prix II 1,693
8. US Poker Championship 1,603

Notice that cash games dominate, coming in first, second, and fifth place, despite the predominance of tournament poker on TV.

The difficulty of finding shows may also affect their ranking. I have a digital video recorder so I only need to download shows that my cable system doesn't carry. Poker After Dark isn't shown by all NBC affiliates. Fox Sports depends on various regional affiliates who may run shows at different times or not at all. Cash Poker only airs at odd times on syndicated channels unless you get WGN, and the show recently became unavailable on my cable system. Not everyone gets GSN, and my cable system (Comcast) carefully hides the channel on something called "local access." I've figured out the channel is there, but many people haven't. I have to create a manual recording of High Stakes Poker on my DVR since GSN has no listings on Comcast's programming guide. I recently talked to another Comcast user who has to download High Stakes Poker because he keeps forgetting to set up a manual recording on his DVR. The shows could increase their ratings just by making available better information on when and where they air (e.g. good luck trying to find Cash Poker just by using the show's web site).